Hicks: Can Jimmy Kimmel become new king of late night?

Soon, there may be a new king of late night. His identity may surprise some people -- Jimmy Kimmel.

To understand why that might be a surprise, one must consider the history of late-night television.

In the early days, there was "The Tonight Show," (with various name changes over the years, but essentially the same show) hosted in 1954 by Steve Allen, who gave way in 1957 to Jack Paar, who in 1962 stepped aside for arguably the greatest late-night talk-show host in history, Johnny Carson, who retired in 1992. Dick Cavett wasn't bad. Later, David Letterman grabbed younger viewers who could stay up later than Carson's crowd. But Carson was still the man.

In the meantime, a number of pretenders on other networks came and went: Joey Bishop, Alan Thicke, Arsenio Hall, Chevy Chase (brrr), Magic Johnson (even more brrr), Craig Kilborn, the underrated Craig Ferguson and on and on.

Then came the drama of Jay Leno succeeding Carson over Letterman (prompting a book and TV movie); Letterman's move to CBS to directly challenge Leno at 11:35 p.m.; controversies over exclusive guest bookings; Leno stepping aside for Conan O'Brien, then shoving O'Brien back out of the chair and onto another network. Late-night contained more drama than daytime soaps.

Now Leno is stepping aside once again. Next year, he will hand his show to Jimmy Fallon, who's moving up an hour from the slot Letterman once occupied. The biggest chair on late-night TV soon will belong to Fallon, which in the eyes of some anoints him as the new king.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Kimmel has spent a decade improving his chops (and his ratings) for ABC on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," biding his time ...

With all that shuffling going on at NBC, and some wondering what happens when Letterman (who is Kimmel's hero) retires, Kimmel is poised to make a serious run at becoming the champ of late-night TV.

Whether you like Kimmel or not, it's difficult not to give him credit for not only improving, but understanding where the late-night game is headed. Using social media to circulate a hilarious fake video of a young woman apparently setting herself on fire while twerking was genius, garnering more than 13 million page views (as of four weeks later) and prompting news outlets to scramble over themselves to report on what they believed was the worst twerking video ever. (The timing was perfect, as Miley Cyrus had just made "twerking" a household word.)

And just when that story ran its course, Kimmel inserted himself into the news cycle for a few days, admitting it was a hoax and that he was behind it. It showed a mastery of how to use social media to keep the public talking about him -- and his show.

Perhaps not as calculated, Kimmel struck again last week, using two children to re-enact a bizarre Kanye West interview, which so enraged West -- one of the most popular entertainers on the planet -- he fired off a series of angry tweets about Kimmel, which the late-night host gleefully read on his show. The media was all over the "feud," and once again everyone was talking about Jimmy Kimmel.

Even before this last spate of stunts, Kimmel had improved enough that ABC extended his contract in January and bumped "Nightline" -- an ABC stalwart for more than 30 years -- back to 12:35 a.m., allowing Kimmel to move up to 11:35 p.m. and compete against the big boys: Letterman and Fallon. That's a major display of confidence.

Fallon has the built-in ratings, and Letterman has the name. But Letterman won't be around forever, and Fallon needs to bring his "A" game. In another year or two, the late-night gold standard may be laughing his way to the bank over at ABC.